ABLE Accounts Are Expanding This Year — and So Is What’s Possible for People with Disabilities

For too long, our public policy has sent a quiet but devastating message to people with disabilities: Don’t save. Don’t plan. Don’t earn too much — or you’ll lose what you need to survive.

ABLE Accounts began to change that story.

When Congress passed the Stephen Beck Jr. Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act in 2014, it marked the most significant disability policy reform since the ADA. For the first time, people with disabilities could save, invest, and plan for the future without risking access to critical benefits like Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income. That was a breakthrough — but it was never meant to be the final step.

Now, more than a decade later, the ABLE Age Adjustment Act took effect January 1, 2026, and represents an opportunity for more Americans with disabilities to take advantage of this financial empowerment tool.

What the ABLE Age Adjustment Act Does — and Why It Matters

Beginning January 1, 2026, the ABLE Age Adjustment Act raises the “age-of-onset eligibility” threshold from age 26 to 46. That single change will expand ABLE eligibility from roughly 8 million people to an estimated 14 million Americans, including approximately 1 million veterans.

Millions of Americans acquire disabilities in adulthood — through cancer, spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis, ALS, long COVID, workplace injuries, or military service. Under the old rules, these individuals were locked out of ABLE Accounts entirely, forced back into the same impossible tradeoffs between work, savings, and health care.

The Age Adjustment Act recognizes reality: Disability can happen at any point in life, and financial security should not depend on when that happens.

ABLE Accounts in Practice: Freedom, Flexibility, and Dignity

ABLE funds can be used for a wide range of qualified disability expenses — including housing, transportation, education, job training, assistive technology, health care, caregiving, and basic living expenses. Unlike other savings vehicles, ABLE Accounts allow people to build financial resilience without triggering benefit loss.

Across the country, ABLE Account holders are:

• Saving for down payments on homes
• Modifying vehicles to get to work
• Paying for college or credentialing programs
• Hiring personal care attendants and job coaches
• Covering daily costs that Medicaid or private insurance will never touch

Since the first ABLE program launched in 2016, people with disabilities have saved more than $2.87 billion across over 223,000 ABLE Accounts — despite the fact that utilization remains far too low relative to eligibility.

That gap is not a failure of ABLE. It is a failure of benefits and policy integration, financial empowerment and education for people with disabilities.

Expansion Is Progress — But It Is Not Enough

The Age Adjustment Act is a major victory, but if we are serious about moving people with disabilities toward independence, work, and long-term stability, Congress and the states must build on this progress.

The policy paper ABLE Accounts: Empowering People with Disabilities to Save, Invest, and Achieve a Better Life outlines clear, actionable solutions to ensure ABLE Accounts reach their full potential. In particular, policymakers should focus on the following:

The Path Forward: Solutions to Strengthen ABLE Accounts

1. Eliminate the Medicaid clawback.
   The possibility that states can reclaim ABLE funds after an account holder’s death in some states remains a deterrent to participation. While many states have already enacted legislation eliminating their clawback, eliminating the federal Medicaid clawback all together would remove fear, encourage saving, and align ABLE with its original purpose of long-term financial security.
2. Integrate ABLE Accounts with existing benefit systems.
   ABLE should not operate in isolation. States and federal agencies should actively align ABLE Account education with case management and enrollment on Medicaid, HCBS waivers, Vocational Rehabilitation, SSI, SSDI, Ticket to Work, and veterans’ programs — making ABLE a default tool, not an afterthought.
3. Expand state-level innovation and flexibility.
   States should pursue demonstration projects that allow Medicaid or workforce support funds, like Vocational Rehabilitation, to be deposited directly into ABLE Accounts, empowering individuals with more choices, access programs across statelines and lessen bureaucracy.
4. Increase contribution flexibility and long-term planning options.
   Congress should allow limited one-time lump-sum contributions, increase the SSI suspension threshold, and explore retirement-style contributions through ABLE accounts for workers who cannot access traditional retirement plans.
5. Bring employers to the table.
   Employers can play a transformative role by offering ABLE education, payroll direct deposit, and even matching contributions. ABLE Accounts should be part of modern, inclusive benefits packages — for employees with disabilities and for those caring for loved ones.

ABLE Accounts were created to unlock possibility — to replace scarcity and fear with choice and dignity. The Age Adjustment Act expands who gets access to that promise. Now, policymakers must ensure the system is strong enough to deliver it.

At Able Americans, we will continue working with Congress, states, employers, and self-advocates to make sure ABLE Accounts are not just expanded — but fully realized as a cornerstone of disability policy for the next generation.